The Kids Thread

Thats great news. He must be super happy given that the pay is good as well.

That’s pretty sweet. Will he live with you during his three weeks off?

I bet the winters will be the toughest; isn’t this location north of the arctic circle with 24- hour darkness for some part of the winter?

he can see Russia from his house.

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Not with us. He moved out about three weeks ago. A farmer we know had an extra basement apartment in a house he rents out. My son loves it because it’s on a farm, so he can walk out the door and hunt.

The job is as far north as you can go, right on the Beaufort sea/Arctic ocean. So yeah, he’ll have some time of 24 hour dark. But he’s three weeks there then three weeks home, so that may help. And he’s young and single, so, that’s just for him to experience.

What I don’t understand is that he gets benefits. 401k and health and dental. But he’s there three weeks and home in Canada for three weeks. No idea what he does if he wants dental. I guess get it done in anchorage on the way home.

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He will probably want to hire a tax person to understand the 401k stuff, but a google search tells me that a Canadian can contribute to a 401k and the amount they contribute reduces the amount they can contribute to the Canadian version. The perk of contributing to a 401k is that there is often some sort of employer match, free money, but it’s usually a match and not outright (although some companies do that). There’s also often a vesting period on the employer money, so it isn’t guaranteed for several years. But again, all that varies significantly by company.

I assume the health benefits would only be utilized if he got sick while in the US. Likely it will still cost him a lot to utilize it, few plans offer generous health benefits anymore, lots have high deductibles to meet before anything beyond preventive is covered.

Dental is imo not a true insurance and it’s often not worth that much, but yeah potentially he’d want to find a dentist in the nearest populated city and utilize the benefits he does get, to the extent they’re better than what he has in Canada (and iirc dental is not included in yinz provincial systems?). Because of the low coverage amounts, it might not even be worth the trouble.

Yeah, dental insurance is essentially a payment plan with tax incentives. Employer-sponsored dental insurance usually layers on an employer subsidy, making it more cost-effective than most choices available to most Americans (other than their spouse’s dental plan).

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Just checking on here.
Wondering what the criteria for “city” is.
I’m in a suburb of LA, and there are plenty of other LA suburbs on the list, places I’d hesitate to raise kids. My city is not on the list

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Woah nice!

What is his new job? Oil/gas?

Santa not hiring, or is the North Pole health plan that bad?

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His studies are in microbiology focused on water treatment and quality. He got hired into the water treatment plant lab there. So I think he like does testing on the water systems for the o&g camps there. Maybe some groundwater stuff too, not sure about that.
I think he got hired by a water company rather than an o&g company.

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I eventually gave in, wake up at 6am on Saturdays now

And then occasionally theyll sleep in and I’m like whats the matter guys???

My 12 year old likes to sleep until almost 9. I’ve told the younger ones that they can’t wake me up until 6:30.

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All 3 of my kids have different schedules.
15 yo stays up late but wakes up at like 7 or 8
12 yo wakes up at 630 pretty much always
10 yo will sleep until you wake him up - sometimes until noon or later on a weekend.

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For me the progression is:

  1. Healthy kid, healthy parent :slightly_smiling_face:
  2. Sick kid, healthy parent :cry:
  3. Sick kid, sick parent :face_with_thermometer:
  4. Healthy kid, sick parent :hot_face::exploding_head::tired_face:

Obviously 1 is ideal. 2 is a bummer but fine (assuming we’re talking about something relatively minor of course). 3 is an even bigger bummer but this too shall pass. You have to watch their shows on TV instead of yours. 4 is brutal. Hopefully it’s during the week and you can ship the kid off to school during the day.

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My 17 year old was baking a cookie-brownie dessert. The instructions said to insert a toothpick 2 inches from the side to check for doneness. He asked how to insert a toothpick through the side of the baking pan.

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Alexa reminds us all that we need to medicate the cat.
I restrain him, while my wife forces his mouth open, throws a pill inside, and then massages his throat so it goes down.

Later we are eating veggies and hummus together. My kid asks for crackers.
I tell her “no, because hummus is the only way you and I ever eat any vegetables.”
She says, “maybe we should just fill our mouths with vegetables, and then massage our throats?”
I say, “I don’t know if that’s a great idea…”
She says nothing in reply.
I turn around and see the broccoli is all gone and her cheeks are full.

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